Skype Hits Out At Threat To Mobile Internet Neutrality

Voice over IP specialist Skype has criticised moves by some European telecoms companies to limit the rise of mobile Internet voice applications.

In a blog posting this week, Jean-Jacques Sahel, Skype’s european director of Government & Regulatory Affairs, attacked some Euroepan network operators which are calling for Skype and others to be charged based on their network use.

“What’s worrying us is that some very large telecom companies are starting to say Internet, especially when accessed with mobile devices, is a drain on their networks and they want to charge Internet companies fees to run its data on ‘their’ network,” he said.

Sahel admitted that European regulators, such as EC commissioner Neelie Kroes, were against such moves, but countries including France and the Netherlands are considering the calls. Sahel said that network neutrality should be protected as network operators are only part of the infrastructure of the Internet and should not be able to dictate pricing.

Not Their Networks

“The operators making the complaints right now only carry the data for a small part of its journey around the web,” said Sahel. “The rest of the Internet ecosystem is based on a successful business model that does not and never had such subsidising of infrastructure companies by content providers.”

The Skype exec also questioned the motives of mobile operators incluing Orange for limiting access to VoIP on their networks. “At the other extreme, we are baffled to see that many of the operators that supposedly ‘allow’ VoIP on mobile at last, such as Orange in France, actually reserve the use of VoIP only to those consumers with the most expensive packages, or require payment of a VoIP-specific prohibitive charge in addition to a user’s basic ‘Internet’ fee, which seems to imply a double-payment by consumers for their Internet use,” he stated.

According to Sahel, as well as an onging French consultation on the open Internet, the Dutch government is also investigating whether network neutrality should be protected. “Discussions are also heating up in the Netherlands where the draft revised telecoms laws put forward by the outgoing government do not contain a clear principle protecting net neutrality apparently,” said Sahel.

In a speech earlier this month at the ARCEP (L’Autorité de Régulation des Communications Electroniques et des Postes) conference in Paris, Kroes said that new telecoms rules introduced last year protected the concept of net neutrality to some degree. “First, under the new framework, National Regulatory Authorities are required to promote “the ability of end-users to access and distribute information or run applications and services of their choice”. This sets a very important principle for net neutrality, as it recognises and safeguards the basic freedoms of Internet users,” she said.

Basic Freedom Of Internet Users

But Kroes also said that the EC would try and meet the demands of all parties. “First and foremost, users should be able to access and distribute the content, services and applications they want. While content providers and network operators should have the right incentives and opportunities to keep investing, competing and innovating,” said Kroes. “And everyone deserves certainty about how this world will take shape.”

Earlier this month, the EC also warned that a failure to embrace new open platforms for the development of the Internet in Europe could have repercussions equal to the global economic crisis.

Earlier this month, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit dealt network neutrality a serious blow on 6 April, ruling that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) did not have the authority to order Comcast to cease and desist throttling of BitTorrent traffic in 2008.